That’s the punch-line, folks. I didn’t leave anything off.
I’m still dumbstruck by the existential bleakness on display there.

She’d rather write a story about her fan-club than a potentially corrupt politician?
Up next, Lois writes an editorial about the “going Galt” phenomenon, without actually cutting back on her own profitability. Or explaining how, precisely, she creates wealth in society.

Pay Full Price
X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Silly name for a movie aside, this looks to be wildly entertaining, if not the most homoerotic film of 2009 that doesn’t star Jason Statham. It’s not just the apparently frequent shirtlessness of Hugh Jackman (who, at this point, I’m not sure is even capable of playing a character that doesn’t come off a little light in the loafers). It’s the stalkerish obsession with Wolverine that Sabertooth exhibits. Plus Ryan Reynolds.
I’m fairly confident that the theaters you see this in are going to be filled with your local homosexuals.

Star Trek: If you’d told me a couple of years ago that I’d be eagerly anticipating a new Star Trek film, I’d have called you a damn dirty liar. In slightly more colorful language that brought into question your mother’s honor.
And yet, here we are.
All Paramount had to do to get me interested in Trek was make a film that looks as little like Trek as possible.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: While the first film had serious tone problems (seriously, are you a movie for kids or a movie for adults who played with Transformers when they were kids?) it kind of grew on me in the end. Eventually I just had to admit to myself that I wanted to see massive carnage inflicted by giant robots. And this promises us that. And Soundwave. And Ravage. And *sigh* Shia.
(I feel like such a dirty old man lusting after him. It’s embarrassing.)

Alien Trespass: A straight-faced spoof of 50′s anti-commie alien invader movies? That looks like it might actually be funny?
I’m getting a little hard just thinking about it.

Paris 36: I’m a sucker for French pop, and this period piece about a French music hall looks glitzy and glamorous and dreamily romantic.
Yes, I can be swayed by that sort of thing under the right circumstances.

Crank 2: Jason Statham, in various states of undress, kicking people. Yeah. First showing opening day, probably.

Netflix It
Pandorum: Astronauts going crazy on a space-ship? Oh, yeah, sign me up. The horror genre has been really letting me down lately, and I could use an old-school, psychological scare.

Sleep Dealer: A politically charged sci-fi film? Wow, that makes a welcome change of pa–oh, it’s not an American film. That explains it.

Public Enemies: Johnny Depp as John Dillenger sounds good, until you remember that over the last decade Depp hasn’t done much more than smirk his way through his roles.

The Objective: Sci-fi horror in Afghanistan from one of the creators of the Blair Witch Project. But this looks slightly clever and original, so we won’t hold that against him.

Bart Got A Room: While the “teen sex comedy” genre has made great strides in recent years, I’m still not quite sure how I’m supposed to take the “quriky indie comedy” take on the subject.

Dragonball Evolution: Oh, this looks gloriously terrible.

Inglourious Basterds: I lost patience with Tarantino years ago. He’s one-trick and one-note. But a movie that’s just non-stop Nazi killing? Okay, you’ve got me curious.

Eden Log: I have no idea what I just watched, but it was strangely pretty and compelling all the same.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian: The first one wasn’t as horrible as it could have been, and was actually almost funny a couple of times. Eh, what the heck.

G.I. Joe: Rise of COBRA: I seem to be one of the few men my age with no emotional attachment to the 80s Joe cartoons, toys or comics, so this just looks like big, dumb, loud, explodey action movie nonsense to me. I have, though, been very entertained by watching serious Joe fans angst out over how “silly” or “gay” this trailer looks. Because we all know how very serious and rampantly heterosexual the original toys were.

I Love You, Man: I loathe the term “bromance” to a degree that it borders on fury. It’s a stupid term coined by lifestyle journalists desperate to get men interested in male-male bonding without the specter of “teh gay” rearing it’s head. And Andy Samberg is at Dane Cook levels of anti-funny, so his mere presence in the film is a significant taint. But it’s Paul Rudd. And he’s way up there on the list of actors that I will put up with a bad movie to see. So, we’ll see. Who knows, it might actually be a half-way decent film, despite Samberg.

Astro Boy: Given that you pretty much have to be of a certain age to even know who Astro Boy is in this country, I’m wondering if a more thorough reinvention might not have been a better idea, like just going ahead and doing Pluto as a film.

I’d Sooner Join Glenn Beck’s “Ayn Rand Book Club”
Terminator Salvation: There is still nothing about this that looks remotely entertaining. And the film-makers have gone back to the “good” Terminator well? Some franchises just need to be allowed to die.

Battle for Terra: Oh, I can’t wait for the Fox News and Free Republic types to start in on their complaints about how this film is yet another Hollywood attack on traditional American values.
That looks to be about the only thing I could enjoy about this. So, so self-important looking. And ugly, ugly animation.

Planet 51: And then we’ve got the same basic concept here, but as an unfunny comedy. With equally ugly animation. Must be in the zeitgeist.

12 Rounds: This could have been a good idea for a film. And then they cast a wrestler in the lead.

17 Again: Ah, yes. Our once a decade revisiting of the Freaky Friday concept.

G-Force: I was prepared to let this one go without comment, as just dumb kid-vid trash…and then I saw the “sexy” female guinea pig. And that was just wrong on so many levels I died a little inside.

The Limits of Control: I suspect that if I was an “omigod, new Jarmusch film!” type, this would be exciting. But a lot of out-of-context shots of people saying non-sequiturs? Doesn’t offer me any hook to care about the film.

Funny People: Ironic title, considering. Judd Apatow decides to go serious with a film about a passive-aggressive asshole comedian trying to break up his ex’s marriage before he dies.
So Apatow is following Woody Allen’s career path in a hyper-accelerated fashion. I guess this means he marries a woman far too young for him and moves to Europe by 2011.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past: Okay now, seriously…has Matthew McConaughey ever been in a good movie?

Observe and Report: Did America really need two comedies about over-weight mall security guards? I would argue America didn’t need one.

The Taking of Pelham 123: Unrelenting subway action as you demand it! I think Travolta’s look in this film is even gayer than the Wolverine movie combined with the Transporter series.

Mutant Chronicles: If you go to see this, and then you complain that it is bad, people have the right to slap you. That is all.

Land of the Lost: People of taste and discrimination tell me that Will Ferrell’s Bush-channeling one-man show in New York is actually quite, quite funny. I have a hard time reconciling that with the kinds of films he’s been making. I mean…this doesn’t look good, or funny, but what strikes me as vaguely objectionable about the whole enterprise is how utterly unnecessary it is. On an intellectual level, I understand that the reason you make a movie called Land of the Lost that has only an accidental relationship to the source material is to get people who recognize the name to pay $8 bucks to see a movie when they might not be tempted to part with their cash for a completely new concept. But still…at a certain point, you really do have to wonder why anyone even bothered to get the rights to the name.

Super Capers: The real reason we need to get the 60s Batman show out on DVD? So Adam West can get some residuals money so that he doesn’t have to appear in…things…like this anymore.

Year One: I would swear that Jack Black used to be funny. This must be how Eddie Murphy fans feel.

All About Steve: I’m willing to put up with a lot for a Bradley Cooper movie. A movie that casts stalking as just a cute thing women do to impress guys? Yeah, not willing to see that.

9: Yeah…that, uh, that pretty much looks exactly like what I would expect a CGI film from Tim Burton and the hack who made Wanted to look like.

“Hey, Herc, can I call you Herc? Thanks for stopping by.”

“Verily, thou didst till Deborah that it twas most urgent.”

“Deborah?”

“Mine personal assistant.”

“Ah, right. Anyway, Herc, the reason we called you down here today is your new catch-phrase. It’s just not working.”

“Mine catch-phrase?”

“Yeah, remember when you were fighting that schlub in L.A. last weekend? Here, we have some video.”

“Aye, tis because the mortal vehicle flew at me not unlike an arrow from Apollo’s golden bow.”

“Right. Yes. And we get that. Love it. It’s just…Middle America, Herc. They hear you talking about ‘Apollo’s shaft’ and, well…it sounds a little, you know…’gay’ to them.”

“Twas not a happy occasion.”

“No, I mean…how can I put this so that you’ll understand…you know…like you and your ‘special friend’ Hylas?”

“I am not sure…oh…Oh! Yes, I doth see your dilemma, mortal.”

“So, what we here at Marvel really need you to do for us, Herc, is to try some new catch-phrases. Ones that won’t make our customers think about…”

“The Greek Vice?”

“Exactly.”

“Ah, well, there is another oath that doth seem appropriate in battles such as this.”

“Okay, yeah, I like the classical theme you’ve got going, but I don’t think legal will clear that one. What else have you got?”

“Herc…that’s not going to work.”

“But, thou hast started accepting ads for the pills for males with less than godly endowments, and Deborah hath said that ‘synergy’ doth be verily important.”

“Herc. No. Try something else.”

“Well…”

“Herc, please, we’re desperate for something we can market. T-shirts. Posters. Come on.”

“There doth be one last oath which could work for all of us.”

“Lay it on me, Herc baby.”

“Art thou weeping, mortal? Aye, the love of comrades dost bring a tear to mine eye as well.”

“Please just leave. And send in Wolverine and Sabretooth, would you? I…I need to have a talk with them as well.”

Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey?, 1981, 8th Printing, Edward Packard
Mike knows why…
My favorite ending? The one where you give up and decide you really don’t care who killed him.

So, for those of you who didn’t know, today is the birthday of your friend and mine, Mike Sterling. I’m not going to say how old he is, because I’m not sure there’s a word for a number that high.

Mike’s been doing the comics retail thing for a long time. Why, I remember the story he told me about the time he met Jack Kirby. As Mike said to him “Kid, don’t quit your day job. Now get off my lawn.”

There’s a number of things that people don’t know about Mike that may surprise them. He owns the world’s largest collection of songs about marijuana. Which is ironic, because Mike’s drug of choice is Diet Coke. And by “Diet Coke” I mean “the blood of obnoxious customers.”

Mike has often been compared to a twentieth century dictator, which is completely inaccurate if you ask me. Mussolini never had a co-worker’s legs broken for parking in his spot, after all.

If you ever need to know how to get hobo blood out of a delicate fabric or how much lye you need to dissolve a human body, Mike’s your man.

But I kid Mike. I kid because I love him. Not like a brother. More like that creepy uncle you see twice a year. The quiet one. The one the neighbors never expected to do anything like that.

And Mike can be very generous when the mood strikes him. I remember, there was this one time when one of his co-workers spilled a can of Mike’s Diet Coke onto an issue of Swamp Thing. Now, Mike could have over-reacted, blown his stack, that sort of thing. But no, Mike very calmly and in a soft tone of voice explained to Aaron how what he did was wrong.
The doctors expect Aaron to have full use of his hands back in a few months.

No, seriously, Mike does a lot of good for the community. Managing the comic book store for one. Well, it gives the real hopeless cases something to do and keeps them off the streets. And Mike is their king. He’s got a little crown and everything. Okay, it’s the twist-ties from bread packages strung together and spray-painted gold, but it’s a crown all the same.
Luckily, Mike’s toupee is made from the finest camel-hair known to man, so that paint doesn’t fleck off and discolor it.

If there’s one thing you can say about Mike, it’s that he’s open-minded about the existence of the supernatural and psychic abilities. He was telling me just the other day about the last time he was hanging out with his personal spiritual advisor. They met in their Hair Club.

So here’s to Mike, the finest man I know!
Even Thursday nights, when he’s Mistress Dominique.

March 15, 12-5 PM, Earl Warren Showgrounds in Santa Barbara, CA

A FREE Community Concert
Featuring:
DISHWALLA, THE UPBEAT, DOMINIC BALLI, STILL TIME
Sunday, March 15, 2009 – 12:00PM-5:00PM
Earl Warren Show Grounds, Santa Barbara
In coordinated efforts with Santa Barbara City Fire, Santa Barbara County Fire, Montecito Fire, Carpentaria/Summerland Fire, US Forest Service, Cal Fire, CHP, Santa Barbara Police, Santa Barbara County Sheriff, Santa Barbara County Search & Rescue, and Equine Evac the community is encouraged to come together to celebrate the lives of Lance & Carla Hoffman and help assist their road to recovery. Every department will be on site to support this event in raising funds for the Hoffman’s. Their finest equipment will be brought in to the Earl Warren Showground parking lot for display, giving families and the community the opportunity to express thanks for their efforts. Lance Hoffman’s grandfather was a Santa Barbara City Fireman.
Santa Barbara favorites, Dishwalla, The Upbeat, Dominic Balli, and Still Time have come together with KRUZ radio to provide FREE entertainment for the community, with the desire to bring people together and encourage relief efforts for the Hoffman’s through donations.

On Thursday, November 13, 2008, the lives of Lance & Carla were forever changed as they fell victim to the devastating flames of the disastrous Tea Fire in Santa Barbara, Ca, destroying 230 homes. After an unlikely escape from the fire, they were immediately taken to burn centers in southern California to begin the recovery process. An update from their family on a Facebook group (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=43752383254) states:

This “Lance and Carla update” is four weeks post-hospital discharge and their improvements are still quite exciting. They are able to do most things independently and although I just returned to my home last night, most of this last week I was only minimally needed. Even my job as the chauffeur is unnecessary because Lance can drive comfortably now! Their Occupational Therapy is definitely still needed, but the healing of the burns has gone well and the biggest danger is in avoiding the sun for the next year. Lance received his pressure garments for both hands and arms, and needs to wear these 23 hours/day. Carla’s are arriving later this week and next. The purpose of these is to provide constant pressure to help flatten scar tissue and allow for optimal healing of the grafts. Their hope is to be able to return to Santa Barbara and find a new home, maybe as soon as next month sometime. When they check up with their doctor they’ll get her recommendation about transferring their rehab needs to Santa Barbara, where Carla says she wants to live on a small island surrounded by water, or in a fire station. In reality, returning to home in Santa Barbara, wherever they settle, will be a joyous occasion! –Linda Hoffman (dated 2/11/09)

Come and be a part of this amazing community effort to help Lance & Carla Hoffman.
WHEN: Sunday, March 15, 2009. 12pm: Gates;
1pm: STILL TIME (www.stilltimemusic.com);
2pm: DOMINIC BALLI (www.dominicballi.com);
3pm: THE UPBEAT (myspace.com/upbeatska);
4pm: DISHWALLA (www.dishwalla.com)
WHERE: Earl Warren Showgrounds, 3400 Calle Real, Santa Barbara, CA 93105
TICKETS: On sale date: FREE Food & Drink will be available for purchase from Woody’s BBQ with proceeds benefitting the Hoffman’s recovery efforts.
Being produced by TWIIN PRODUCTIONS at twiinproductions.com 1221 Chapala Street, 2nd Floor Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Introduction and Thesis

Over the years, Hank Ketcham’s serialized magnum opus, Dennis the Menace, has attracted more than its share of admirers. It’s one of those rare deep literary works that has attracted both intense critical acclaim and broad popular appeal. It is surprising, then, that so many of Ketcham’s readers have favored a shallow, one-dimensional approach to the material, choosing to read it as merely the adventures of a young boy prone to comical misbehavior, a latter-day Tom Sawyer of the suburban landscape in Eisenhower’s America. When, contrary to this popular misconception, Dennis the Menace is one of the most searing indictments of middle-class conformity and the soul-crushing despair of the new middle class created by post-war prosperity.

Alice and Henry Mitchell, far from being the long-suffering parents of a scampish child, are two desperately lonely, bitter people trapped in a loveless marriage, yet forced by the Republican values of their community to put on the facade of a happy young couple. Henry Mitchell was once a man of hopes and dreams, with lofty ambitions to succeed in the worlds of arts and letters, but a too young marriage has forced him into a soul-crushing corporate office job, where better educated, better qualified men, men who did not put their dreams on hold to start a family, continually surpass him. Alice Mitchell is in much the same position, forced to abandon her dreams of a successful and glamorous life when she hitched her yoke to Henry Mitchell in a youthful infatuation that she mistook for true love. Ketcham masterfully captures the acidic undertone of their relationship, but subtly softens it by presenting it to us through the eyes of their son, Dennis, the true victim of their failed attempts to conform to society’s expectations.

Though never directly addressed in the strip itself, it is clear from the clues that Ketcham leaves that Dennis the result of Alice and Henry attempting, in a woefully misguided manner, to recapture that initial spark that they mistook for love, to bring the two of them back together by creating a new being that is a mix of their traits. However, far from either reminding each other of what they once admired in the other, or distract them from their anguish by the travails of raising a child, what Dennis has instead done is serve as a living reminder of how both Henry and Alice blame the other for the mess that has been made of their own lives. This situation of emotional neglect is what prompts Dennis to act out. He’s not misbehaving, he’s yearning for some sign of affection of acknowledgment from his parents, and only by embarrassing or humiliating them amongst the peers, that the Mitchell’s secretly loathe as the enforcers of the middle-class conformity they feel strangled by, can he elicit any response from them, thus perpetuating the vicious cycle. This is also the chief reason why Dennis “bothers” his neighbors, George and Martha Wilson. He is seeking in them substitutes for the parental figures he subconsciously understands he lacks: a loving maternal presence from Martha and a stern, authoritarian father in George.

Textual Evidence

Dennis gives voice to his unconscious wish and Henry’s secret hope: that he is the product of Alice’s adultery and not actually Henry’s child.

Alice, longing for the touch of a man, has resorted to blatantly seeking an affair in a public place. She has, however, a deep fear of rejection, brought on by Henry’s emotional distance, and has brought Dennis with her, in a dim understanding that she will be unable to act on her longings while he is with her.

Alice is given a brief yet terrifying glimpse into a possible outcome of the neglect with which she and Henry treat Dennis, and predictably she blames Dennis for it.

A certain degree of Henry’s angst over his situation is confusion over his sexuality. So stifled is he by his suburban cage that the only outlet available to him to explore these feelings is faking drowning incidents at the beach, a fact that Alice seems not terribly surprised to discover.

Henry’s attempts to ingratiate himself with his neighbors without spending more than a negligible amount of money is thwarted by Dennis, who exposes Henry’s misrepresentation of the esteem with which he holds his peers. Here the subtle nature of the retaliation Dennis engages in for his neglect is on full display, as his statement seems to come from childhood innocence, and yet it betrays an instinctive understanding of the greater cost and prestige of steaks over hot dogs. A nurtured child would be more enthusiastic about a finger-food like frankfurters.

So, it may be hard to believe, but there’s a remote possibility that X-Men Origins: Wolverine may, in fact, not end up being the gayest film ever made that doesn’t actually star either Jason Statham or Russell Crowe.

Shocking, I know.

And it’s all because Gay America’s Favorite Puppy-Dog-Eyes Actor has a new action movie coming out that requires him to be shirtless for extended periods…

I think in the end Wolverine is going to edge out Prince of Persia in the Unintentional Homoeroticism Stakes because POP is essentially about Jake Gyllenhaal looking as cubish as possible, while X-MO:W features Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber and Ryan Reynolds in hairy, shirtless, sweaty male-bonding and subtext dripping innuendo for two hours.

Of course, were the video-game movie to feature a co-star, it might be a different story: